Anatolian Agency Dispatch

Çirkin Kral filmleriyle Washington’da 

Goethe Enstitüsü ve Freer&Sackler Gallery’nin ev sahipliğini yaptığı 8 Güney filmi, Amerikalıların yoğun ilgisini çekti.Yıllardır Amerika’da film programları düzenleyen Ercüment Ackman ile Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Washington Müşavirliği ve Güney Film’in işbirliğiyle,Yılmaz Güney‘in unutulmaz filmlerinden ”Yol”, ”Umut”, ”Ağıt”, ”Sürü”, ”Seyit Han”, ”Aç Kurtlar”, ”Arkadaş” ve ”Zavallılar”, 9 ay boyunca ABD ve Kanada’yı dolaştı. Turun son ayakları kapsamında önce New York’taki Lincoln Center’de gösterimi büyük ilgi gören filmler, ABD turunu başkent Washington’da tamamlıyor.

Başkentte Goethe Enstitüsü ve Freer&Sackler Gallery’in ev sahipliği yaptığı gösterimlere ”Sürü” filmiyle başlandı. Goethe Enstitüsündeki gösterim Amerikalılardan ilgi gördü. Film gösteriminin ardından seyirciler de filme hayran kaldıklarını belirttiler.Yeni proje: ”10 yönetmen 10 film” olacakKuratör Ercüment Ackman da New York’ta Lincoln Center’da yapılan 29 filmlik Türk film panoramasının yeterli ilgiyi gördüğünü belirterek, ”Lincoln Center’ın müdürünün de söylediği gibi 25 senedir yapmak istediği bir programdı. Belki de bunun 10 sene önce değil, bugün yapılmış olmasının bize çok büyük faydaları var. Çünkü Türkiye’de sinemanın çeşitlendiği ve kültürel değerleri insanların özgürce filmlerinde seslendirebildikleri bir ortamda yapıldı. Eminim ki bu daha yeni filmlerle de devam edecek bir program” diye konuştu.

Washington’da ABD ve Kanada’yı dolaşan 8 Yılmaz Güney filmi serisinin son ayağının düzenlendiğini ve Goethe Enstitüsü’nde ilk gösterime ilginin iyi bir düzeyde olduğunu ifade eden Ackman, Goethe Enstitüsü’nün Güney’in ”Sürü”, ”Umut’ ve ”Yol” adlı filmlerini, Freer&Sackler Gallery’nin de ”Zavallılar”, ”Arkadaş” ve ”Ağıt” filmlerinin aralarında olduğu 5 filmi göstereceğini anlattı.

AA

Yilmaz Guney Panel | Goethe Institute | Parts 1-3

Wednesday, 16 May 2012, 6:30 pm 
Following Screening of Hope (Umut) 
Turkish with English subtitles 


Followed by discussion with: Tom Vick, Curator of Film, Freer and Sackler Galleries Sinan Ciddi, Institute of Turkish Studies, Georgetown University Asiye Kaya, DAAD Visiting Professor, BMW Center for German and European Studies Erju Ackman, Editor, Turkish Cinema Newsletter

 

Goethe-Institut | Yılmaz Güney: Master of Euro-Asian Film Culture

May 9 – 21, 2012

Goethe-Institut

Yılmaz Güney: Master of Euro-Asian Film Culture

"We're all somehow his children." — Fatih Akin

“An inspiration to countless subsequent directors, including the Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin (Head-On), who has spent the last years preparing a film about his self-declared hero, Güney drew on Italian neorealism to make his deeply humane and passionately committed works about the social reality of his country.” — James Quandt

Yilmaz Güney (1937–1984) is a legendary figure in Turkish cinema. His remarkable career trajectory led him from roles as a popular leading man to a filmmaker so politically dangerous Turkish authorities threw him in prison. Güney and his work became more widely-known in the Western world after his film Yol, banned in Turkey, won a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.

Co-presented with the Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution.

Films will be shown in Turkish with English subtitles.

Wednesday, May 9, 6:30 pm

The Herd (Sürü)

Turkey, 1978, 35mm, 129 min., Director: Zeki Ökten, Screenplay: Yilmaz Güney, Cast: Tarik Akan, Melike Demirag, Tuncel Kurtiz

The Herd has a simple premise that it utilizes to devastating effect: the economic survival of a Kurdish family depends on its ability to drive its herd of sheep from the mountains to Ankara. The film follows the driving of the herd; the constant threats to the livestock and the family serve both as a kind of ethnographic documentary and as existential (and political) parable. Explaining to an interviewer about his use of metaphor and allegory to express himself politically in his films, Güney declared that the subject of The Herd was the history of the Kurds. At the same time, he noted, the film was made in Turkish; any public use of the Kurdish language was illegal at the time.

Wednesday, May 16, 6:30 pm

Hope (Umut)
Turkey, 1970, 35mm, 100 min., Director: Yilmaz Güney, Cast: Yilmaz Güney, Gülsen Alniaçik, Tuncel Kurtiz, Osman Alyanak

When one of his horses is killed in a car collision, cab driver Cabbar must find a way to keep his large family afloat. Illiterate and in debt to many people, the police do not help him seek justice against the car’s driver, and he is plunged into despair until his friend Hasan suggests that they go and find a mythical buried treasure in the desert. Bringing along a preacher for spiritual guidance, the three men journey across the desert to retrieve the treasure—their last remaining hope.

Followed by discussion with

Tom Vick, Film Programmer, Freer and Sackler Galleries

Sinan Ciddi, Institute of Turkish Studies, Georgetown University

Asiye Kaya, DAAD Visiting Professor, BMW Center for German and European Studies

Erju Ackman, Editor, Turkish Cinema Newsletter

 

Monday, May 21, 6:30 pm

Yol
Turkey, 1982, 35mm, 114 min., Director: Yılmaz Güney and Serif Gören, Cast: Tarik Akan, Serif Sezer, Halil Ergun, Necmettin Çobanoglu, Hikmet Çelik

This story tells the stories of five prisoners allowed a week to return home. Seyit Ali must contend with the fact that his wife has been discovered working as a prostitute and her family is holding her for Seyit to perform an honor killing. Thief Mehmet Salih must tell his wife that he abandoned her brother while he was being shot at by the police, much to the ire of his in-laws. Ömer, a man from a border village, has to face the consequences of rampant smuggling and tensions with the army. In this dramatic tale, tradition is as much of a prison as a jailhouse itself. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

In cooperation with “The Way Home: The Films of Turkish Master Yılmaz Güney”, at the Freer and Sackler Galleries May 6 – 20. Visit www.asia.si.edu for full descriptions and schedule updates.

Acknowledgements: Special thanks to the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism; Turkish Culture and Tourism Counselor's Office, Washington D.C.; Hüseyin Karabey, The Güney Foundation; Erju Ackman, Turkish Cinema Newsletter. All film prints supplied by the Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture and Tourism - General Directorate of Copyright and Cinema / Telif Hakları ve Sinema Genel Müdürlüğü, Dr. Abdurrahman Çelik, General Director.